When finishing my Art History Ph.D. in the 1990s, I belatedly figured out that the part I really enjoyed (and cared about) wasn't having a finished scholarly publication, it was doing all the behind-the-scenes things that had to happen first: designing a relational database, gathering information, and organizing the information so that it could be repurposed. Luckily, I got a job as a curator in a special collections library, where it's okay to do that instead of publishing-or-perishing.
I started coding for fun when I was 11 (1981) then stopped in high school when it was made clear to me by teachers and peers that girls aren't supposed to do that. Now I want to make up for lost time.